RE: [xml-dev] Principles for an Ethical and Sustainable Internet -XML

[Liam R E Quin <liam@w3.org>]

On Thu, 2012-08-30 at 08:47 -0500, Len Bullard wrote:
> [...] The quote I sent to Liam
> was a calm response from one of the world's top music producers whose
> name you would recognize.

The higher up, the harder the fall.

The music distribution industry is fighting, and trying to make people
think it's the music industry. Apple, meanwhile, became a top player in
the music distribution almost overnight.

The British coal distribution industry was really dismayed when the
canals were cut, and tried to fight them; the folks with oxen and heavy
carts went out of business. One hundred year later it was the canal
shipping industry that tried to fight the railways. And then in turn the
railways tried to fight the automobile. But none of that was about coal.

It's the distributors tied to selling physical objects who are going to
go away.

There aren't many heavyweights left in the music industry, Len. The
people at the top have to look _up_, not _down_.

Same as the movie industry. Did you know Google Adsense's revenue is
larger than Hollywood box office sales and the computer game industry
combined?

The answer is not in making a young man walk in front of the train of
progress carrying a red flag - he will inevitably get run over.

The answer is not "how do we fight the Web and the computer industry
until they learn to send everything on CDs instead of this awful net
thing."

If we don't yet know the right answer, calling us stupid or irrelevant
won't help us get there.

Let's see a W3C Business Group for tracking music downloads via Web
browsers so that ISPs can pay royalties. You know where the door is.
Stop throwing rotten eggs and come inside.

Liam

-- 
Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/

Co-author, "Beginning an Egg Smell"...